Main navigation

Bugatti has made a RM139,000 EV

By topgear, 19 September 2019

Bugatti didn’t just bring the £12 million (approx. RM62.82 million) La Voiture Noire to this year’s Geneva motor show. It also showed off a 3D-printed model of a rear-wheel-drive EV costing from as little as €30,000 (approx. RM139,024), of which it would make 500 examples…

As you might have guessed by the gallery up top, the Bugatti Baby II (yes, that’s its name) is no gussied-up Volkswagen ID.3. No, it’s a faithful three-quarter scale recreation of the Bugatti Type 35.

And we mean faithful – in developing the Baby II (a nod to the half-scale ‘Baby’ toy cars Ettore Bugatti built in the Twenties) engineers from Bugatti and The Little Car Company digitally scanned every single component of a 1924 Type 35 Lyon Grand Prix car.

Of course there are changes. Everything’s three-quarters the size, for one, and naturally it does away with the original’s internal combustion engine. Baby II instead has an all-electric drivetrain.

The removable batteries come in 1.4 or 2.8kWh capacities (the latter giving almost 20 miles - 32km - of range), and feed an electric motor with ‘child’ and ‘adult’ modes, where its top speed is limited to 19 and 45kph respectively. You can also specify a ‘Speed Key’, which ups the top speed to 80 or 100kph. Drive is sent to the rear wheels only via a limited-slip diff. Yes, really.

The eight-spoke alloy wheels are exact replicas of the originals but shod with modern Michelins. The steering, suspension and hollow front axle have been precisely reproduced too. The cockpit gets a turned aluminium dash with bespoke instruments (including a Chiron/Veyron-esque power gauge) and a plaque showing the chassis number. On the front each Baby II will get a Bugatti ‘Macaron’ badge made using 50 grams of solid silver.

Other features include a horn, rear-view mirror, handbrake, headlights, adjustable pedal box and a remote control to disable the car from up to 50 meters away, should your precious toy (and precious child) start to head for a solid object.

As standard they’re blue with a black interior, but we’re told you can have any colour from the Chiron pallete, or a ‘vintage’ colour “dedicated to a famous driver or event from the history of Bugatti”.

Three specs are available – the standard car, the ‘Vitesse’ (which adds the top-speed key) and the ‘Pur Sang’ (which gets a handmade aluminium body). Each one is 2.8m long, 1m wide and weighs around 230kg sans driver.

The first prototype (pictured) is up and running, with the main run of 500 cars to be built through 2020 and 2021. You can’t buy one, though. All 500 were accounted for within three weeks of its reveal at Geneva, even though it was just a mock-up back then. You can still head over to the website to register your interest, though, should someone drop out.

Yeah. We’re gonna need a go ASAP.

TopGear Malaysia

Local and international automotive news, test drive reports, and everything in between. Buy the magazine, bookmark this website on your browser, and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and our YouTube channel.